Chelsea 4 Liverpool 4: Lampard ends Red fairytail

14 April 2009 10:28

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After two extraordinary free-kicks and two mistakes that will haunt Pepe Reina and Petr Cech for some time to come, Chelsea emerged as the winners of this astonishing Champions League tie.
Even after scoring two goals in six second half minutes, they probably feared they might blow a 5-3 aggregate lead and somehow allow Liverpool to take their place in the last four.
But the kind of errors that enabled Fabio Aurelio and Xabi Alonso to go so close tocompleting a mission that was considered impossible were largely eradicated after the break and instead inherited by Liverpool.
Just when it seemed Liverpool might get the third goal that would have taken them to the next round, Reina contrived to turn a cross from Nicolas Anelka that received the lightest of flick-ons from Didier Drogba into his own net.
There was less he could do about the missile of a free-kick that followed from Alex or either of Frank Lampard's late strikes, but that first goal restored some much-needed confidence in Chelsea's ranks.